So griefing is a reality in any MMO. It was there from zero day gameplay in UO and if anything is exponentially more evident in todays modern MMOs.
In the latest FAQ updates this can be seen:
Repeated griefing and harassment will become a Customer Service issue. If a player consistently ruins the fun and entertainment of other players he or she will no longer be welcome to play Pantheon.
This sounds more like a vague "play nice" policy where we can all expect griefing as a matter of gameplay and given complaints VR will deal with problems on a case by case basis.
The difficulty with this type of policy and a small studio with limited admin staff, managing problem players takes a very low priority. Generally there will always be more serious issues to deal with first.
It would be fantastic if a more organic method for dealing with problem players could be developed which would remove a large amount of social management from admin's to-do lists.
For those that did play the early day MMOs and remember how important reputations were and how jackass players would become shunned normally by server populations and guilds. But this still did not stop their griefing. In some cases a certain culture of players simply play to grief, and not as elegantly as Pansy.
I expect at the very least, as in the past there will be some sort of /report tool to simply give players a way to document a griefer to VR. But the /report tool was at times mis-used and becomes another griefer tool at times.
Is there a perfect tool?
How about allowing players to run their own private dedicated servers and have their own white-listing systems and rules.
More and more games these days are creating dedicated servers that users can run and manage. All that is required is a purchased client to play.
Given the current state of cloud tech and powerful virtual servers available to anyone, making a client and game that users can run on their own moves a company away from being in an admin/management mode to simply a game content and client creating business.
This seems to be even more of a smart move for a game that is not interested in having a cash shop.
VR could still spend all their time on content and client, but not worry about managing servers anymore. Motivated players could roll up their own game worlds with the server build, customize for whatever they want be it RP, PvP, PvE, etc.
zewtastic said:VR could still spend all their time on content and client, but not worry about managing servers anymore. Motivated players could roll up their own game worlds with the server build, customize for whatever they want be it RP, PvP, PvE, etc.
While I understand how this might seem like a good idea, it is not. What this kind of thing would do is put the servers and policing in the hands of unaffiliated people, leaving the user experience greatly varied between servers. It would/could fundamentally alter the average user experiences and I'd imagine more often than not end up in a net loss of players and VR would be blamed for things that happen to go wrong on said servers more often than those running the servers.
Also worth noting is the content creators are VERY likely not the ones going to be managing in-game customer service/gm requests in any respect. So that isn't taking time or resources from the game content. There will be specific customer support/GMs as well as the guide program which falls more in the "community support" role, taking care of the easier/more common and mundane tasks that players inquire about.
Iksar said:zewtastic said:VR could still spend all their time on content and client, but not worry about managing servers anymore. Motivated players could roll up their own game worlds with the server build, customize for whatever they want be it RP, PvP, PvE, etc.
While I understand how this might seem like a good idea, it is not. What this kind of thing would do is put the servers and policing in the hands of unaffiliated people, leaving the user experience greatly varied between servers. It would/could fundamentally alter the average user experiences and I'd imagine more often than not end up in a net loss of players and VR would be blamed for things that happen to go wrong on said servers more often than those running the servers.
Also worth noting is the content creators are VERY likely not the ones going to be managing in-game customer service/gm requests in any respect. So that isn't taking time or resources from the game content. There will be specific customer support/GMs as well as the guide program which falls more in the "community support" role, taking care of the easier/more common and mundane tasks that players inquire about.
Actually you would be wrong.
In small studios employees wear many hats, and it is not outside the norm for anybody to end up performing a function like policing on a server.
It's a new age with games and dedicated servers. Smaller groups with closely managed servers have become very popular for all the obvious reasons.
Games like Arma, Dayz, Conan Exiles, 7D2D, Ark, etc. all have thousands and thousands playing on private dedicated servers.
here is a list of all the valve based dedicated servers availble.
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Dedicated_Servers_List
When Conan Exiles launched a couple weeks ago they estimated more than 9000 private servers were created by individuals and groups. Now I as an indiviual can find a server with whatever custom rules and settings I want.
The need to host, manage and feed large expensive servers is rapidly disappearing.
This is the same model as I will give you the cable box for free as long as you pay me for the content.
I'm not sure how this fixes the problem, since griefers can just as easily get into those servers and do the same.
Plus, what guarantees as a player would I have? Who controls the servers? What if that person or group decides they don't want to run that server anymore? Can I transfer from one server to another?
If I'm hit by a bug who do I report it to? Can the server administrators fix character issues? I remember when I lost all of my equipment in the middle of a battle in EQ1, it was just poof I was a naked cleric getting beat on by a mob. Can the server admin give me my gear back? Or do I have to go to VR for that?
I'm currently playing ArcheAge, which is published in the US by Trion, but made in Korea by XL Games. There is nothing more annoying than hearing, "We're in talks with XL Games to get this bug fixed and hope they get around to it soon."
I don't know all of the games on that page, but they all appear to be simple multiplayer games, not MMORPGs. MMORPGs require good population control for servers to be effective. Too big a population on the server and people get annoyed that everything is always taken. Too small a population on the server and people will complain they can never find a group, nobody is ever in their area, etc. Spreading people out amongst an uncontrollable number of servers will make that impossible to do.
One last thing, who do I pay to play this? Am I paying VR to play, or the server administrator and they're paying VR for the right to run a server?
zewtastic said:Iksar said:zewtastic said:VR could still spend all their time on content and client, but not worry about managing servers anymore. Motivated players could roll up their own game worlds with the server build, customize for whatever they want be it RP, PvP, PvE, etc.
While I understand how this might seem like a good idea, it is not. What this kind of thing would do is put the servers and policing in the hands of unaffiliated people, leaving the user experience greatly varied between servers. It would/could fundamentally alter the average user experiences and I'd imagine more often than not end up in a net loss of players and VR would be blamed for things that happen to go wrong on said servers more often than those running the servers.
Also worth noting is the content creators are VERY likely not the ones going to be managing in-game customer service/gm requests in any respect. So that isn't taking time or resources from the game content. There will be specific customer support/GMs as well as the guide program which falls more in the "community support" role, taking care of the easier/more common and mundane tasks that players inquire about.
Actually you would be wrong.
In small studios employees wear many hats, and it is not outside the norm for anybody to end up performing a function like policing on a server.
It's a new age with games and dedicated servers. Smaller groups with closely managed servers have become very popular for all the obvious reasons.
Games like Arma, Dayz, Conan Exiles, 7D2D, Ark, etc. all have thousands and thousands playing on private dedicated servers.
here is a list of all the valve based dedicated servers availble.
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Dedicated_Servers_List
When Conan Exiles launched a couple weeks ago they estimated more than 9000 private servers were created by individuals and groups. Now I as an indiviual can find a server with whatever custom rules and settings I want.
The need to host, manage and feed large expensive servers is rapidly disappearing.
This is the same model as I will give you the cable box for free as long as you pay me for the content.
None of the games you listed are MMORPGs, they are PvP survival games, which are completely different in terms of server mentality and community, we have stated that we have no interest in private servers, it doesn't suit our game or our philosophy to split our community up into many multiple private shards where they lock themselves away from the rest of the community, especially in a group based game like Pantheon that relies on cooperation, grouping and player interaction. We may tweak some rulesets on some servers to accommodate PvP, RP and possibly a hardcore server but it will completely depend on the amount of interest shown.
Keep in mind that we have advisers and combined experience of many years making games and dealing with these issues to not be thinking ahead to how we will handle them in Pantheon.
This post will now be closed, as it is just another repeat of one of your other posts about this exact subject (http://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3520/i-hate-to-ask-but-can-we-expect-serious-player-moderation) and the answer has not changed, please do not create any more threads on this topic as they will be removed and further action may be taken.
Please check the newly updated FAQ as it answers a lot fo these questions and more. http://www.pantheonmmo.com/game/faqs/